Quick, act surprised - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has been announced. After countless leaks and rumours, Activision has finally revealed that Modern Warfare 3 is launching this year, on November 10.
The news was confirmed with a very short teaser, not giving much away at all. However, as the name would suggest, it's a continuation of the rebooted Modern Warfare series, and therefore, a loose remake of the original Modern Warfare 3 from 2011.
We don't get anything close to gameplay footage in the reveal, but we at least have the official confirmation that Modern Warfare 3 is indeed real, after months of rumours. Plus, let's be honest, we know what it's going to look like. We've been through two of these Modern Warfare reboots already now, we know what we're in for.
The other two have gone down well with fans, and unless something goes catastrophically wrong during the late stages of development, we can expect a similar reception to Modern Warfare 3 when it launches on November 10. Many fans fondly remember the original conclusion to the Modern Warfare series from their childhood, so the nostalgia definitely helps.
This announcement comes shortly after Xbox managed to sign a deal with PlayStation regarding Call of Duty's future, should its acquisition of Activision Blizzard go ahead. While PlayStation was offered four years of access to all Activision Blizzard games, it eventually agreed to ten years of sharing Call of Duty instead. This means that while other Activision Blizzard IPs are free to go Xbox exclusive, future Call of Duty games will be available on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch for the next decade.
Of course, that only matters if the acquisition goes ahead. We shouldn't expect Modern Warfare 3 to be available on Switch just yet, since Microsoft's arrangement with Nintendo hasn't come into effect. Neither of the previous Modern Warfare games made it onto Switch, so this isn't too surprising.
That being said, it does seem that the Xbox and Activision Blizzard deal will go through, as it managed to win its court case with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US. The next hurdle for Microsoft is the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which had initially rejected the deal over concerns that it would give Xbox an unfair market advantage in the cloud gaming space. Xbox has already partnered up with other cloud gaming services to ensure that Call of Duty releases on multiple platforms, so it remains to be seen if it's willing to make further concessions in this field.